Google to allow fantasy gaming apps in India pilot; strike hits Dunzo Daily ops in Bengaluru
Also in this letter:
■ Dunzo Daily’s Bengaluru operations hit as delivery staff protest
■ Lido Learning files for bankruptcy as acquisition talks collapse
■ Global ecommerce sales projected to fall for the first time ever
Google Play Store reverses policy on fantasy gaming, rummy apps in India
Google said on Thursday it is conducting a pilot to allow the distribution of Indian-made daily fantasy sports (DFS) and rummy apps on the Play Store in India.
Currently, such apps – which include Dream11, Mobile Premier League and many others – are not available on the Play Store because they fall within the ambit of gambling.
The pilot is scheduled to run from September 28, 2022 to to September 28, 2023.
“Through this pilot programme, we are taking a measured approach that will help us collate learnings and retain an enjoyable and safe experience for our users,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.
Process: The company said interested developers must fill in an application form to participate in the pilot and stage an app for review. “Participating developers must have requisite safeguards for a safe and secure user experience as provided in the pilot terms and conditions,” Google wrote in a blog post.
Conditions: In addition to all Google Play policies, DFS and rummy apps that are accepted will be subject to the terms of the pilot programme. This means they must not only comply with all local laws and regulations, but also own the required licences and permits, and have safeguards to ensure they are accessible only to users over the age of 18 who live in states where such games are not prohibited by law.
Developers of such apps will also have to provide users with complaint redressal mechanisms and customer support, Google said. It added they cannot be paid apps or use Google Play’s in-app billing system.
Scrutiny: We reported earlier this week that India’s anti-competition watchdog is in the final stages of investigating the search giant’s Play Store policies.
Globally, too, Google finds itself at loggerheads with competition regulators, most notably in South Korea, which in 2021 banned Google and Apple from forcing developers to use their in-app billing systems. The Netherlands also fined Apple $55 million earlier this year for failing to allow dating apps to offer alternative payment methods.
Dunzo Daily’s Bengaluru operations hit as delivery staff protest
Reliance Retail-backed Dunzo has seen its quick commerce operations under Dunzo Daily come to a screeching halt in Bengaluru — its largest market — over the past two days as its delivery executives have gone on strike to protest changes to its delivery policy, sources said.
Dunzo Daily, the 20-minute delivery service, was still not available in many pockets of Bengaluru as of Thursday afternoon. A message on its app read: “Dunzo Daily will be back in a while.”
“Operations were severely hit for Dunzo Daily in the last two days after protests by delivery partners at Dunzo’s office premises in Bengaluru,” a person aware of the matter said. “It’s partially back up now in certain areas of Bengaluru,” this person added.
Why the strike? The company has started to push ‘batching of orders’ — meaning one delivery person is assigned multiple orders to service on a single trip. Dunzo has also made internal tech changes to how orders are assigned to delivery partners and how they will be picked, leading to further friction with the company.
We reported last month that Dunzo would push for order batching to reduce delivery costs and was looking to curb its spending after a season of hyper-growth in the first six months of the year. It is also incentivising users to choose longer (60-minute) delivery options.
The competition: Other quick commerce platforms such as Swiggy’s Instamart, Zepto and BB Now (BigBasket) are still operating across Bengaluru, albeit with longer delivery times because of the ongoing rains and flooding in part of the city.
Recent pivot: Dunzo, which was known for its pick-up and drop service, made its entry into quick commerce around January when it was finalising a Reliance Retail-led $240 million funding round.
Lido Learning files for bankruptcy as acquisition talks collapse
Edtech firm Lido Learning, which had been exploring a merger, has now initiated an insolvency and bankruptcy process as it struggles to pay its teachers and former employees.
Driving the news: The company’s board passed a resolution at a meeting on September 5 to file an application under Section 10 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, according to company filings with the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA).
Buyout talks fall through: The company was in talks for a potential buyout by Reliance Industries, as first reported by The Morning Context in June. However, the talks did not fructify, according to a person aware of the discussions. The company went on to lay off close to 200 employees in February. It is yet to pay the January salaries of many sacked workers.
Founded in 2019 by Sahil Sheth, Lido Learning offered live online tuition to children from kindergarten to grade nine in subjects such as math, science, English, and coding. It catered to the Indian and Middle-Eastern markets.
Last September, the company announced a $10 million (about Rs 73.4 crore) raise from Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures, taking its overall funding to $20 million.
Tweet of the day
Highlights of Day 1 of ET Soonicorns Summit
On the opening day of the ET Soonicorns Summit 2022, top startup entrepreneurs and key ecosystem leaders spotlighted the ‘India soonicorn opportunity’ as they gathered to celebrate the future unicorns of India and deliberated on what’s needed to enable their growth.
Startup founders, investors, and tech solution leaders also engaged in a wide range of dedicated panel discussions on healthtech, agritech, and fintech. In nine sessions on Day 1, key speakers at the event deliberated on a wide range of themes and trends dominating the tech startup ecosystem, including building for Bharat and for the world, the India market opportunity, as well as navigating a tough operating environment to build lasting businesses.
“The soonicorn opportunity is very much the India opportunity. We are a market with enormous potential and with the ability to create massive, disruptive lasting companies. But we’re not quite there yet. The ET Soonicorns Summit is meant to address the very things that are holding us back, and that are on the horizon for this stage of companies that we face today,” said Times Internet Vice Chairman Satyan Gajwani in his inaugural keynote.
Day 1 of the virtual ET Soonicorns Summit, powered by AWS and Intel, also featured Shark Tank India judge and D2C unicorn Mamaearth cofounder Ghazal Alagh, who joined cofounder Varun Alagh in a special Unicorn Playbook session, where the duo shared key learnings from their journey in building and scaling a profitable unicorn.
Watch the highlights of Day 1 of the two-day virtual event here. You can also visit the ET Soonicorns Summit website for details of the speaker and session lineup for Day 2 on Friday.
Global ecommerce sales projected to fall for the first time ever
Global ecommerce revenues are forecast to shrink for the first time ever this year, owing to supply chain issues and rising inflation, according to a new report.
The industry is expected to generate $3.74 trillion in sales this year, $95 billion less than in 2021, the Statista Digital Market Outlook report said, adding that the expected revenue drop comes as the market faces global challenges in 2022.
Quote: “Traditional ecommerce technology has reached its limitations, and many brands are seeing their ecommerce tech stacks not flexible enough to meet customer expectations. On top of that, digital advertising costs are rising. However, supply chain issues and inflation remain the biggest weakening factors,” the report said.
Also Read | India ecommerce sales tepid as consumption growth slows down
In just four years, global ecommerce revenues spiked 70% to over $3.84 trillion in 2021, according to the report, with electronics and fashion accounting for nearly half of the total.
“The previous forecast projected $481 billion more revenue in 2022 than a year ago. However, as of July, the global ecommerce revenue projection slipped from $4.22 trillion to $3.74 trillion,” the report said.
Disney found ‘substantial portion’ of Twitter users fake in 2016: ex-CEO
Former Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company had determined that a “substantial portion” of Twitter’s users were “not real” in 2016, when it was weighing a purchase of the social network.
Iger said the Walt Disney Co and Twitter Inc boards were prepared to enter negotiations when he got cold feet. He said that, with Twitter’s help, Disney had learned that “a substantial portion – not a majority” of users were fake.
“I remember discounting the value” as a result, Iger said in his remarks at the Code Conference in Beverly Hills, California. He did not specify what he meant by “substantial.” Twitter has consistently reported that fewer than 5% of its “monetisable” daily users are bot or spam accounts.
Boost for Musk: Iger’s comments come amid a legal battle between Elon Musk and Twitter over Musk’s deal to buy the social media company for $44 billion. Musk, who is trying to walk away from the deal, claims that Twitter misrepresented the prevalence of spam or bot accounts on the platform.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai and Gaurab Dasgupta in New Delhi. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.
For all the latest Technology News Click Here
